Final Exam Flashcards
Mind as Computer:
What is the computer metaphor at the heart of cognitive psychology?
The mind as a computer - info comes in, and something comes out. People process info and a behavior results. Helps guide research questions (ex. do we do things serially?)
History of Field:
What was Donald Broadbent’s role?
- Father of cognitive psychology
History of Field:
What area did John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner focus on?
-Behaviorism: focus on stimulus and behavior
History Field:
What was Max Wertheimer’s contribution?
- Gestalt psychology: study of how brain organizes the world (ex. we see patterns like groupings of color)
History of Field:
Who was Edward Titchner and what was his contribution?
Student of Wundt. Brought Structuralism to the United States
History of Field:
Describe the school of thought Wilhelm Wundt was associated with.
Structuralism - understanding components/structure of consciousness
Founders:
Describe the area of psychology Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner focused on
Psychophysics - focus on the relationship between external stimuli and internal experience
Information Processing Approach:
How is Sternberg’s study an example of the information-processing approach?
- response time is a clue as to how the brain retrieves something
Sensation:
What are the function of the pupil and iris?
- Pupil: allows light to pass into eye
- Iris: muscle: adjusts pupil depending on available light
Sensation:
What is the function of the cornea?
- Provide some protection against damage
Sensation:
What is the function of the lens?
- Bend light
- Adjusts to accommodate distance
Sensation:
What is the function of the retina and the fovea?
- Retina: location of rods and cones
- Fovea: point of central focus, full of cones, small part of overall retina
Sensation:
What is the optic nerve?
- where axons of cells bind together
- blind spot in this area
- blind spot of one eye filled in by the other eye
Sensation:
What is the difference between rods and cones?
- rods: respond to any light, don’t need much light; more active at night, predominantly in periphery, less detail
- cones: respond to preferred wavelengths, need lots of light, more active during the day
Sensation:
What are after effects? What color vision theory is this?
The result of tiring out the cones that respond to a certain color which then allows you to see the opposite color. Colors seen as paired opposites: red & green, yellow & blue, black & white. This is the Opponent Process Theory of color vision
Sensation:
Describe the ventral stream
- “what” stream
- temporal lobe
- processes object’s properties
- damage produces visual agnosia (difficulty recognizing objects)
Sensation:
Describe the dorsal stream
- “where” stream
- parietal lobe
- processes spatial relationships
- damage can produce apraxia (difficulty with some movements)
Bottom-Up & Top-Down:
What is the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing?
- Bottom-up: processing stimuli visually, building up into recognition
- Top-down: start with knowledge and expectations
- Perception is both bottom-up and top-down
Perception:
What did the Hubel and Wiesel study find?
- cells in visual cortex have more specific preferences than ganglions
- individual cells have preferred angle (fire more for certain angles and less for others)
- cells in hyper columns have similar preferences
Visual Illusions:
What is Carey and Diamond’s (1977) Encoding Switch Hypothesis?
When first born, humans process faces featurally. Transition to holistic processing around age 10. Young children process featurally, adults process holisitically.
Visual Illusions:
What’s the difference between holistic (configural) and featural face
Featurally: process individual features
Holisitic: process as a whole
Visual Illusions:
What are Gestalt Grouping laws?
Ways of grouping that help us organize and draw meaning from objects; focus on the whole is the sum of its parts
Visual Illusions:
Name and briefly explain the Gestalt grouping laws
Proximity - closeness between objects
Similarity - see structure
Continuation - if view something partially blocked, it seems to continue
Closure - default assumption that objects are closed, have edges, take up area
Good figure - default assumption of regular shapes
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain the ball illusion
Typically the clicking noise in the 2nd trial makes it more likely for people to report that the balls bounce off one another
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain the McGurk effect
Lips saying “ga,” hearing “ba,” so perception is neither and makes something in between like “da”
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain Hidaka and Shimoda’s first experiment
Investigated does color of comparison stimulus affect how sweet it’s judged compared to standard? Yes.
Comparison stim. was colored, adaptation stim and standard were clear. Sugar content of stan. and comp. were the same, adaptation stim slightly higher. W/out adaptation condition - comparison reported to be sweeter than standard. W/ adaptation - comparison reported to be less sweet
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain Hidaka and Shimoda’s second experiment
Does color influence adaptation process? NO.
W/out adaptation - JND need less to notice difference; PSE need less sugar.
W/ adaptation - JND need more, PSE need more
Models of Attention:
Describe the Early Selection Model. Who proposed this model?
- attention selects before identification
- encoding (followed by gate) then identification, response selection, response execution
Models of Attention:
Describe the Late Selection Model. What researchers proposed it?
- Deutsch and Deutsch
- attention selects after identification
- encoding, identification, (gate), response selection, response execution
Models of Attention:
Describe the Attenuation Theory. Who proposed it?
- proposed by Treisman
- Attention does select early but the filter isn’t strong
- what you inhibit can come through in a weakened state
- ex. in conversation with someone but hear name called far away
Models of Attention:
Describe the Load Theory. Who proposed it?
- Lavie
- cognitive load: how much stuff you’re dealing with
- default is to process everything
- low load: process everything; late selection
- high load: selective (early selection)
Endogenous & Exogenous Attention:
How does attention shift in regards to exogenous attention?
- exogenous attention: reflexive attention shift; something in environment
- overt: eyes’ gaze shift
- covert: eyes/head stay fixed
Endogenous & Exogenous Attention:
How does attention shift in regards to endogenous attention?
- voluntary attention shift
- choose to focus attention
- overt: eyes and head shift
- covert: eyes fixed
Controlled and Automatic Processing:
What is the difference between controlled and automatic processing?
- Automatic processing: no attention required
- Controlled processing: requires executive functions and control
Controlled and Automatic Processing:
How did the Payne study contrast controlled and automatic processing?
- looked at how implicit racial biases contribute to automatic/controlled processes
- subjects had to identify object as gun or tool; target object preceded by face of white or black male flashed
- exp. 1 no time limit - RT faster when pairing face of black male with gun, result low error rate, time to override automatic processing with controlled processing
- exp 2: time limit, higher error rate, automatic processing (no time to override), more willing to respond w/ automatic processing bc of time limit
Controlled and Automatic Processing:
How is the Stroop Task an example of the difference between controlled and automatic processing?
- SAY color of font, NOT the word which is name of a color
- difficult task bc reading is automatic for simple words
- have to control impulse to read the word and instead read ink color
Selective and Divided Attention:
Is attention capable of being divided (true multi-tasking)?
- Attention shifts between multiple tasks
- however can perform two tasks at the same type if they use separate functions and have no interference
Attention Failures and Deficits:
What is inattentional blindness?
- people paying attention to certain stimuli ignore/don’t see other stimuli
Attention Failures and Deficits:
What is change blindness?
- don’t see a change, especially if quick
Attention Failures and Deficits:
Which type of attention is impacted by ADD or ADHD?
- selective attention
- also less attentional control
Attention Applications:
What did Strayer et al’s study reveal about cell phone conversations while driving?
- talking on phone pulls attention from road
- exp. 1: people on phone took longer to press brake, longer to let go of it, longer to reach min. speed, also increased following distance
- exp 2: people on phone had less memory of billboards passed while driving
- exp: 4 took longer to identify words if on cell phone
Memory Models & Stages:
Describe the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model (Multi-Store Memory)
- SENSORY MEMORY: hangs onto info breifly to determine if relevant, if yes then pay ATTENTION and transfer to short-term
- SHORT-TERM (info may get TRANSFERred into long-term)
- LONG-TERM: retrieval processes an bring this info back into STM to enable response output
Memory Models & Stages:
What is the capacity and duration of short-term memory?
- duration: less than 30 sec
- capacity: 7 plus or minus 2 items
Memory Models & Stages:
What is the duration and capacity of long-term memory?
- duration: potentially lifelong
- capacity: potentially infinite
Memory Models & Stages:
Describe the Baddeley & Hitch Model
- 2 stores and 1 central executive in between them
- visuospatial sketchpad: focuses on spatial and visual info
- phonological loop: focuses on sound info
- central executive: determines what gets put into working memory, which store gets the info, can integrate info involving both sound and visual/spatial, manipulation
Memory Types and Processes:
What are declarative memories? What are the types of declarative memories?
- declarative/explicit: can consciously report them, can freely retrieve
- episodic: memories of things that happened to you
- semantic: memories of knowledge and info
Memory Types & Processes:
What are nondeclarative memories? What type of memory is nondeclarative?
- nondeclarative/implicit: don’t have ready for conscious retrieval
- procedural: memories of skills
Memory Types & Processes:
What is encoding?
- creating a memory
- important structures involved are hippocampus and prefrontal cortex
Memory Types & Processes:
What is consolidation?
- strengthening memories
- memories stored throughout brain
Memory Types & Processes:
Who was H.M? What abilities were affected and what were intact?
- suffered head injury from bike, had severe seizures originating near hippocampus
- part of hippocampus removed
- short-term memory intact
- long-term memories from before surgery intact (they aren’t stored in hippocampus)
- intact non-declarative
- couldn’t make new episodic memories
Memory Types & Processes:
What is forgetting?
- no longer able to recall a memory which had been previously encoded
Memory Types & Processes:
What is the difference between proactive and retroactive interference?
- proactive: old info interfering with storing new info; forward in time
- retroactive: backward in time; new info interfering with recalling old info
Memory Errors:
Describe Loftus and Palmer’s experiment
- car crash judgments
- content of verb presented in question influenced speed estimates (“smashed” elicited higher speed estimates)
- exp. 2 false memories of broken glass more likely to be formed if verb smashed was used
Memory Errors:
What effect does misattribution have on memory?
- attribute info to wrong source
Memory Errors:
What effect do inferences have on memory? What did Sulin and Dooling find regarding this?
- inferences drawn when experiencing the event
- Sulin and Dooling: paragraph about a girl, one group had paragraph with name Helen Keller, subjects formed false memory that paragraph contained the words “deaf” and “blind”
Memory Errors:
What effect does suggestion have on memory?
- info presented after experience can impact how it’s remembered
Memory Applications:
What factors influence eyewitness testimony?
- amount of time that has passed since event occurred
- exposure to information after the event may alter memory
- cross-race identification
- leading questions that suggest a certain answer
Memory Applications:
Describe the problems with the eyewitness account in the Lockerbie bombing case
- passenger plane bombed over Scotland, police recovered suitcase which had pajamas
- 9 months passed between the event and when shopkeeper was questioned
- shopkeeper’s details were conflicting/inconsistent in different interviews
- he had seen the suspect’s face on poster, could have changed his memory
- cross-racial identification can be a factor
- possible miscarriage of justice with this case
Memory Applications:
Describe the Fells Acres Daycare case
- arrest and conviction of man, sister and mother
- conviction based on testimony of children
- child reported 3 months late that he had been inappropriately touched (he had wet his pants and been changed)
- issues with child testimonies:
- amount of time
- suggestibility
- social influences
- repeated questions
- use of dolls
- understandability of questions
Well- and Ill-Defined Problems:
What is a problem? What are its 3 components?
- problem: a situation without an immediately apparent standard or routine way of reaching a goal
- 3 components:
1. ) goal state (what you’re working towards)
2. ) initial state (info you have at start of problem)
3. ) operators (action you can take to move from initial to goal state)
Well- and Ill-Defined Problems:
What is the difference between a well-defined and an ill-defined problem?
- well-defined: all 3 components are known
- ill-defined: at least one component is undefined/not known; possibly more difficult to solve
Well- and Ill-Defined Problems:
What role does the prefrontal cortex play in solving well- vs. ill-defined problems, according to Goel?
- location where the problem mainly occurs
- hemisphere difference in how approach the problem:
- left hem. damage: impairs well-defined problem solving
- right hem. damage: impairs ill-defined problem solving
Well- and Ill-Defined Problems:
What is a problem space? How is it constructed? Describe the tic-tac-toe example
- problem space: visualizing the solving of a problem
- depict stages of a solved problem or turns in a game as a tree
- limited by STM (not enough memory for all possible moves)
- tic-tac-toe: ex. first move of X has 9 choices (branches), second move (next level) is O and has 8 choices
Problem-Solving Strategies and Heuristics:
What is an algorithm? What is a heuristic? What are the advantages/disadvantages of them?
- algorithm: set of procedures that you follow to solve a problem (ex. long division, recipe)
- advantage of algorithm is if you follow it exactly you won’t make a mistake
- heuristic: short-cut for how to do something; help you get to solution more quickly
- advantage of heuristic is it’s quick if you don’t need an exact answer
Problem-Solving Strategies and Heuristics:
What are the heuristics of random guess?
- provides shortcut, gets you kind of closer to the answer
Problem-Solving Strategies and Heuristics:
What are the heuristics of hill-climbing? Discuss how the Rubik’s cube and hobbits and orc problem relate to this type of heuristic
- pick next move to make it look like you’re getting closer to the solution/goal state
- sometimes looks like you’re moving closer but you may be moving further away from the solution
- Rubik’s cube problem utilizes this heuristic
- Hobbits and orcs problem: people have difficulty making a necessary backward move bc it looks like it’s getting them further away from the solution
Problem-Solving Strategies and Heuristics:
What are the heuristics of means-end analysis? How does it relate to the Tower of Hanoi task?
- breaking a big problem down into smaller problems
- Tower of Hanoi - focus on getting the next ring in goal state
- efficient to deal with large problems
- first choice may be significant for next moves but likely don’t realize it
Problem-Solving Strategies and Heuristics:
What is functional fixedness? What are the two classic examples of this?
- functional fixedness: fixated on object’s typical use and cannot see how to use it differently in nontraditional fashion
- ex. Two String Problem - have to hold two strings but they aren’t long enough, have to use pliers to make a pendulum
- ex. Candle on the Wall - have to mount a candle onto the wall and only have the candle and a box of tacks to do so
Problem-Solving Applications:
Describe what the Carraher at al study did and found. What mistakes did the children make?
- explore how child street vendors did math on the streets
- informal task: researchers asked prices on the street in “natural” environment
- formal task: formal test of mathematical procedures, operation problems, word problems
- performance overall on formal task wasn’t as good as informal; however did better with word problems then the straight up math problems
- mistakes: swapped order of operations, incorrect operator, didn’t use operator at all
Conditional Reasoning:
What is a conditional statement?
- “if then” statement that tells us something about the world
- antecedent = “if”
- consequent = “then”
- only tells us what will happen if antecedent occurs, don’t know what happens if antecedent doesn’t occur
Conditional Reasoning:
What is modus ponens, denial of antecedent, affirmation of consequent, modus tollens?
- modus ponens: told “if” is true, conclude that “then” is true (ex. told he did clean up his toys (“if”), conclude that he got a cookie)
- denial of antecedent: told “if” is false, conclude “then” is false; invalid conclusion
- affirmation of the consequent: told “then” is true, conclude if is true, but really an invalid conclusion
- modus tollens: told “then” is false, conclude “if” is fal
Conditional Reasoning:
What is the traditional Wason Selection Task? What cards are people supposed to turn over,? What cards do they actually turn over and why?
- 4 cards, one side number, one side letter
- “if card has D on one side, then it has a 3 on the other side”
- should pick D and 7
- mistake: chose 3 (affirmation of consequent) or D (modus ponens)
- also task with squiggle cards
Conditional Reasoning:
What is the modified Wason Selection Task? Describe the 3 examples from class
- modified tasks tap into existing schemas so easier to reason with (relevance to real world experiences)
- ex. “if a person is drinking beer, then they are over 21”
- ex. “if an envelope is sealed, then it has a 20 cent stamp”
- ex. “if entering the country, then must have cholera vaccine”
Deduction:
What mistakes do people make when performing deductive reasoning tasks?
- tend to focus on whether it’s true in the real world, rather than validity
- some things might be true IRL but invalid
- some things may be false IRL but valid
Deduction:
What is a syllogism?
- syllogism: 3 statement set
- first two statements are premises
- third statement is a conclusion
- goal to evaluate if 3rd statement is valid
- if involves categories of items, then can assess validity using venn diagrams
Induction:
Describe the Bruner et. al task rules
- simple rule: one feature
- conjunctive rule: “and” rule, 2 features, each from a diff dimension
- disjunctive rule: “or” rule, only need one of 2 parts to be a yes
- negative rule: “not” rule, pick one feature
- relational rule: ex. number of shapes matches number of borders
Induction:
What rules in the Bruner et. al task are easiest and which are hardest? What strategies are available?
- simple rule is easiest
- conjunctive is easier than disjunctive
- strategies:
- successive scanning: go from yes card and change one feature
- focus gambling: keep only one feature from something you already know
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
Are people rational? What is the notion of bounded rationality?
- people can be rational in certain circumstances with low cognitive load (and irrational when high cog. load)
- “bounded rationality” - we can be rational to the extent that our cognitive limitations allow
- these limitations include attention, working memory, executive functions
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
Discuss the first two problems in Tversky and Kahneman’s study
- one group of subjects choose between A and B
- options were mathematically almost the same except A is absolute/sure while B is risky
- another group chooses between C and D
- mathematically same as A and B but framed in terms of lives lost
- when framed in terms of gains - people pick sure thing
- when framed in terms of losses - people pick risky choice
- emotion might play a role
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
Discuss problems 3 and 4 in Tversky and Kahneman’s study
- failure to combine decisions
- 2 sets of 2 options
- one option sure gain w/ risk, other option sure loss w/ risk
- should be thinking about combinations
- people usually treat the sets as separate and choose sure gain then choose loss; not the best outcome
- problem 4 tells to subjects to think about them together but still treat them as separate
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
Discuss problems 5-7 in Tversky and Kahneman’s study
- failure to account for contingencies
- problem 5: sure gain or risky gain - people choose sure gain
- problem 6: 25% likelihood of reaching stage to choose C or D - so really no longer a sure thing
- problem 7: choose between options having already advanced
for prob. 6 and 7 people still prefer guaranteed wins but don’t take into account the low probability of that win
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
Discuss problems 8 and 9 in Tversky and Kahneman’s study
- failure to account for similarity in outcomes
- problem 8: lost $10 bill, will you still buy $10 ticket; people do
- problem 9: lost ticket, will you buy $10 ticket; people don’t
- lose same amount of money either way
- difference in that in problem 8 the $10 hasn’t been assigned to anything yet
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
Discuss problem 10 in Tversky and Kahneman’s study
- $5 savings is dependent on proportion of cost
- calculator $15 regularly, $10 on sale
- or $125, regular, $120 on sale
- people willing to drive 20 minutes to buy the $10 one, they don’t treat $5 as $5
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the strawman logical fallacy?
- intentionally misrepresent someone’s argument to make it easier to attack
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the slippery slope logical fallacy?
- if we allow this to happen, them this other thing will happen, and other thing will happen
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the ad hominem logical fallacy?
- attack on opponent is based on personal characteristics rather than their argument
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the gambler’s logical fallacy?
- events occur in “runs,” or that something is due bc it’s been a while, but really events are statistically independent
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the bandwagon logical fallacy?
- popularity is taken as a measure to indicate if something is good
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the black or white logical fallacy?
- presenting a situation as if there is no middle ground or “gray area”
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the appeal to authority logical fallacy?
- trusting an authority figure on a topic of which you know little about
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the appeal to nature logical fallacy?
- if it’s natural it’s assumed it is good
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the anecdotal logical fallacy?
- using personal stories rather than actual scientific evidence, or giving equal weight to personal stories and evidence
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the appeal to emotion logical fallacy?
- using emotion to win an argument rather than actual logic or reason
“Rationality” and Reasoning Applications:
What is the Texas sharpshooter logical fallacy?
- pick bits of data that support point and ignore parts that don’t support it
Bayes’ Theorem and the Expected Utility Model:
What is the Expected Utility Model? Do people follow it when making decisions?
- allows you to figure out which of two options is mathematically better
- people are motivated to win and may choose the higher prob. of winning
- gains: prob. of winning x amount to be won
- loss and gains: (prob. winning x amount to win) - (prob. lose x amount to lose)
Decision-Making Heuristics:
Describe De Neys et. al’s study
- given description of fictional person and given statistic
- 4 diff conditions:
- incongruent: heuristic and probability lead to different choices
- congruent (control): heuristic and probability lead to same choice ‘
- neutral (control): cannot use heuristics, must be probability only
- heuristic (control): cannot use probability, must use heuristic only
- results: high accuracy for control conditions and in incongruent condition longer response time when used base-rate
Decision-Making Heuristics:
What is the availability heuristic?
- assume something happens more often if we can retrieve many memories of that something happening
- we assume the statistical probability is higher than it actually is
- ex. media replaying events
Decision-Making Applications:
Discuss the Hammerton study. Why did people make those mistakes? How does Bayes’ Theorem help us evaluate the results of medical screenings?
- examined how people use base-rate info to make medical judgments
- fictional disease and given statements
- 90% chance person w/ disease will be recorded positive
- if no disease 1% chance for false positive
- roughly 1% of pop has disease
- subjects median response was 85% chance of having disease
- really should be about 50%
- confidence ratings very high, even when just guessing without all the given info
- overall people weren’t using base-rate info - instead maybe used their memory to try to recall instances
Bayes’ theorem takes into account all statistical probabilities of having the disease, false pos., etc.
Language Structure:
What is grammar?
- rules, the structure that governs language
Language Structure:
What is syntax?
- organization of a sentence
Language Structure:
What are semantics?
- the meaning of a sentence
Language Structure:
What is phonology?
- the sounds of a language
Language Structure:
What is orthography?
- the letters or script of a language
Language Development:
Describe DeCasper and Spence’s study
- pregnant women read to unborn child
- babies could chose to hear same story read by mother or a different story (chose based on rate of sucking pacifier)
- indicates babies knew difference between one story and another - so language learning even in babies
Language Development:
What is the critical period hypothesis? What evidence supports it?
- certain skills have to be learned at a certain point in time or they cannot be learned at all
- critical period for language development is puberty
- evidence: Genie - never taught language and at 13yrs could learn words but couldn’t put them together to form a sentence
Language Development:
Describe Saffran et al’s study and their findings
- babies able to learn statistical patterns of sounds (esp. transitional probabilities which are likelihood of a particular sound following another sound)
- exposed to made up language (“bidaku, padoti, golabu, tupiro)”
- chose between hearing word or non-word: preferred nonword
- second exp chose between word and part-word: showed they understood where one word ends and next begins
Comparative Language:
What are four properties of human language that distinguish it from the communication patterns of other species?
- duality of patterning: units of meaning (words) are made up of units which are meaningless on their own (letters)
- arbitrary: words are arbitrary and are assigned meaning
- generative capacity: we can create new words whenever we want to
- recursion: take a sentence/thought & embed into another sentence (“nesting” ideas)
Comparative Language:
What have studies on animals indicated about animals’ ability to learn and use human language?
- Koko the gorilla: learned sign language but didn’t make grammatically correct sentences
- Kanzi the bonobo: understood what symbols meant
- show the animals can understand some human lang (at toddler level) but can’t further
Language Comprehension:
What is language comprehension?
- how we’re able to understand language
- know what spoken words mean and what words on a page mean
Language Comprehension:
What is the Wernicke’s area? What is Wernicke’s aphasia and its symptoms?
- left hem, temporal lobe
- area involved in lang comprehension
- Wernicke’s aphasia: “word salad” in which words come out but lack meaning, may also have difficulty understanding questions
Language Comprehension:
What did Just and Carpenter (1980) find regarding word fixation? What do their findings tells us about word processing?
- measured how long eyes stayed on certain words
- longer on meaningful, unfamiliar, and first words
- also longer for words that take longer to say/read
- we don’t look at every single word but most of them, we may jump ahead but may need to backtrack
- how eye processes words while reading
Language Comprehension:
What do the results of Allopenna et al tell us about word comprehension?
- subjects focused on objects on computer screen and given sentence (request)
- where were people’s eyes looking when asked for “beaker” : equally likely to be looking at beaker or beetle
- start trying to find out what it means as we’re hearing it
Language Comprehension:
How do the results of Aaronson and Scarborough (1977) and Graf and Torrey (1966) demonstrate the importance of phrase boundaries in language comprehension?
- Aaronson and Scarborough: looked at how long people spend in between words; longer gaps between phrase boundaries
- Graf and Torrey: gave subjects sentences one line at and then tested comprehension; better comprehension when setnences broken up by phrase boundaries
- we process in terms of individual phrases not word by word
Language Comprehension:
How do the results of Tyler and Marlsen-Wilson (1977) answer whether a sentence’s syntax is processed separately from its semantics?
- subjects read sentences and had to choose appropriate verb; either ambiguous sentence or unambiguous
- slower response time for unambiguous inappropriate verb, fastest for ambiguous appro.
- we use semantics to figure out what should come next w/ help of knowledge of syntax
- we work w/ syntax and semantics at the same time
Language Production:
What is Broca’s area? What is Broca’s aphasia and its symptoms?
- frontal lobe, left hem
- language production
- Broca’s aphasia: difficulty speaking, writing, no problem with meaning but trouble getting words out
Language Production:
What are the three processes of speech production? (CFA)
Conceptualization: figure out meaning you want to convey
- Formulation: use syntactical structure and pull in words to help convey the meaning
- Articulation: speech planning, control mouth and breath for words to come out
Language Production:
What is the tip-of-the-tongue state speech error?
- functional level
- word that you know but cannot retrieve it from memory when you need it
Language Production:
What is the word substitution speech error?
- functional level
- instead of saying word we want we say a diff word that is related in meaning
Language Production:
What is the word blend speech error?
- functional level
- 2 diff words that might be appropriate in that spot in sentence but come out together/blended instead of picking one
Language Production:
What is the morpheme exchange speech error?
- positional level
- morpheme (meaning unit) of the word swaps but ending stays same
- ex. I sampled some randomly- “randomed some samply”
Language Production:
What is the word swap/exchange speech error?
- positional level
- 2 words swap location-wise in sentence
- usually same parts of speech (ex. noun and noun)
Language Production:
What is the phrase blend speech error?
- positional level
- 2 diff phrases get mixed together
Language Production:
What is the phoneme deletion speech error?
- sound level
- sound missing, should be there but isn’t
- ex. “black” turns into “back”
Language Production:
What is the affix deletion speech error?
- sound level
- affffix = end word
- drop final sound of word
- usually the part which indicates if things are plural or past-tense
Language Production:
What is the phoneme exchange (spoonerism) speech error?
- sound level
- swap beginnings of two words
Language Production:
What is the phoneme preservation speech error?
- sound level
- earlier sounds in sentence show up after they should done
Language Production:
What is the phoneme anticipation speech error?
- sound level
- sound in sentence shows up earlier than it should
Language Production:
Describe Baars at al’s study
- induced speech errors, subjects read list of word pairs starting w/ same letters (d and b) except flip order on last pair (b and d)
- Exp. 1: more likely to make spoonerism if ending would be lexical (real) words in context
- Exp. 2: nonlexical, no context; little diff in whether swap would be non-lexical or lexical
Language Production:
How is writing diff from speech?
- time to plan prepare
- tend to use more complex elements in writing
- we write alone
Language Production:
What are the three stages of writing ? (PTR)
- Planning: figure out message you want to communicate, more time than speech
- Translation: take ideas from planning stage and put them on paper
- Reviewing: read what you’ve written to spot errors and make sure message will be communicated to reader
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
What are cognates?
- word that is similar/same across the two lang you know
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
What is code-switching? When does it occur?
- bilingual speaking to another bilingual who speaks same langs
- while speaking switch to other language (for word, phrase, or rest of sentence)
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
What are some advantages and disadvantages to being bilingual?
- disadvantage: bilingual toddlers are slower to acquire ind words
- advantage: kids get to school know more words than monolingual peers and better capacity for learning language; better understand lang is symbolic; greater capacity for inhibitory control
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
Describe Linck et al’s study
- effect of immersion on ability to inhibit first lang
- subjects: 25 students abroad in Spain, 20 students on campus in classroom setting
- translation recognition task: given word in English and word in Spanish, had to indicate if correct translation ve
- verbal fluency task: given category and come up w/ as many examples as possible
- immersed learners less distracted by distracters for translation task (not affected by lexical distracters while classroom group was); affected by semantic neighbors while classroom group wasn’t
- immersed better at producing more words in Spanish for verbal fluency, classroom better with English words
- data consistent w/ idea that immersed group was inhibiting English while in Spain
Language Applications:
What is dyslexia? What is dysgraphia?
- dyslexia: deficit in reading comprehension or speed
- dysgraphia: difficulty writing
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
Describe the cognitive stage of skill acquisition in terms of the memory rep, performance, and attention demands
- memory rep: declarative
- performance: slow, inaccurate
- attention demands: high
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
Describe the associative stage of skill acquisition in terms of the memory rep, performance, and attention demands
- memory rep: association made stronger
- performance: improving
- attention demands: medium
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
Describe the autonomous stage of skill acquisition in terms of the memory rep, performance, and attention demands
- memory rep: nondeclarative
- performance: fast, accurate
- attention demands: low
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
What is the power law, as applied to skill acquisition?
- steepest declines in time at the beginning, then less steep afterwards
- little bit of practice initially improves performance a lot, but after it takes much practice to improve
- skill remains long after practice but may require a “warm-up” period
Skill Acquisition and Expertise: Describe Gray (2004) study and what was found
- single-task was batting a simulated ball, dual task was batting while responding to a tone
- secondary task was either “extraneous” (reported pitch of tone) or “skill-focused” (report direction of bat)
- Exp 1: experts not affected by extraneous task but novices were; experts worse w/ skill focused task while novices better
- Exp 2: more attention to secondary task led to poorer batting performance
- Exp 3: pressure reduced skill task errors but performance was worse; fewer errors w/ pitch task but more errors overall with skill task
Perception-Action Cycle:
What are point-light displays? When viewing them what info are we able to perceive?
- figure outlined by a few dots/lights
- we see dots/lights but brain fills in details to see person
- we can perceive: male/female, mental state, weight
Motor-Planning and Updating:
What is the end-state comfort effect? How did Rosenbaum originally study it?
- we plan our movements so that we’re comfortable at the end of the movement
- originally studied with how people grabbed dowels
Motor Applications:
How can the mirror illusion be used to help stroke recovery? What did Michielsen et al find?
- group with mirror therapy had higher post test scores, better able to move their hand after therapy
- however the effects did not last once therapy was stopped
Future Directions:
With the Murphy and Dalton experiment, did people experience tacticle blindness and if so with which pattern?
- people more often experienced tacticle blindness with the insect pattern tappers
Future Directions:
How does taking a photo of something affect our memory? (Lurie et al)
- perceptual memory worse
- but conceptual memory better
Future Directions:
How are “doublespeak” statements evaluated for agreement and truthfulness? (Walker et al)
- doublespeak statements had higher truth ratings than lies
Future Directions:
When evaluating idioms, are figurative and literal meanings both active? (Sanford et al)
- both meanings active early on at 100ms, but at 800ms only literal is active
Future Directions:
Can instrumental tunes become earworms? What effect do they have on performance? Which type of working memory is affected?
- can happen with instrumental tunes
- tune or random tone played while subjects did serial task
- more interference w/ the tunes (decreased accuracy)
- working memory is affected
